Lake Victoria South Catchment Area

The catchment area is about 31,734 km2 out of which 4, 128 km2 is lake waters constituting about 13% of the catchment area.

Lake Victoria South Catchment (LVSCA) is in the southern part of Lake Victoria basin in Kenya. The catchment covers Kisumu, Homa-Bay, Kisii, Nyamira, Migori, Kericho, and Bomet Counties and parts of Siaya, Vihiga, Nandi, Nakuru, Narok, Uasin-Gishu, and Baringo Counties.

It is borders Lake Victoria North Catchment Area to the North, Rift Valley Catchment Area to the East, Tanzania to the South, and Lake Victoria to the west.

The catchment comprises six major drainage systems of Nyando, Sondu, Gucha-Migori, Northern and Southern Shoreline Streams and Mara which is a trans boundary resource shared between Kenya and Tanzania. The Gucha-Migori River, with a mean monthly discharge of 1.83m3 /s has the highest contribution of water to Lake Victoria, whereas Mara River has the largest drainage area.

Available Water Resources and Water Demand

Available water resources

The available water resources consisting of the surface water runoff and sustainable yield of groundwater were estimated as follows

Annual Available Water Resources

Year

Available water (MCM/year)

Surface Water

Groundwater

Total

2010

4,773

203

4,976

2030

5,749

188

5,937

Percentage of 2010 values

120%

93%

119%

Source: NWMP, 2030

The sustainable yield of groundwater was then derived as 10% of the groundwater recharge in the catchment area.